Aileen and X looked at the woman in shock, not entirely sure of what was going on. Human, she was definitely human, Aileen realized after a moment, and a human who wasn't connected to the Men in Black but somehow knew about them.
Aileen shook her head. This was definitely unusual, but they didn't have time to deal with unusual at the moment. She motioned for X to get the neuralizer.
"There's absolutely nothing going on out here. You should go back inside and forget all about coming out here." X said as he flashed the neuralizer. Probably not the best thing as far as a speech went, but he had never been the greatest at them, and they needed to get this human…. Wait, this human whose eyes were not going glassy as expected. "I think this is broken." He looked at the little device in confusion and shook it slightly as if that would somehow produce the expected neuralization effect.
"It isn't broken. It just doesn't work." The woman said before turning to Aileen. "Does he need some sort of psych referral? Because he doesn't seem to be from one of the groups that have camera issues that they mentioned in cultural competency. I don't actively practice, but I'm pretty sure I can arrange that. And I'm pretty sure that most of the psych department were able to make it in this morning, unlike the urology department, where half of them who weren't scheduled for something important were told to stay home."
Psych referral. Forbus definitely needed a psych referral although probably not the kind this woman was thinking. Before Aileen could reply the woman spoke again.
"Is it just an issue with the cameras?" She asked. "Because if you have an issue with cameras, this area is actually pretty safe. I'm pretty sure that Mister Thomas's nephew has some sort of monopoly on security cameras for this part of Queens, and I'm also sure that he has no idea how to install security cameras and to actually get them to work. Goodness knows that the ones he installed for us aren't working, and if he was going to get things right you would think he would do it at the hospital where his uncle is on the board of directors."
The cameras in the area weren't working? That would actually make this area safe for Forbus if he would believe it, and might help solve the issue of what to do with him with the limited resources that they had but…. "When people tried to take his picture there were problems before." Aileen murmured. The cameras being broken would solve one problem, but if anyone took his picture….
"I think I know where he can go where no one is going to be taking pictures". The small silvery haired woman said with a smile as she turned to Forbus and motioned for all of them to follow her out of the alley. "You drive a cab, right? I think I remember seeing you a few times in a cab a few years ago. Would you like to help my friend Mister Singh today? Basically it involves ferrying people from the Lorelei Nursing Home here and back. Mister Weaver has been in rare form for the last few days since everything started going crazy, so Mister Singh could definitely use the help. No cameras at all. The only thing even close to a camera is albums full of pictures of grandchildren. Perfectly safe."
"Mister Singh, I think I've found someone to help you out today!" She called to the man just getting into a cab at the ER doors. "He's new to our country too, doesn't speak English, and his religion forbids him to have his picture taken. If you could let them know that at the Lorelei please? But he's very eager to help out, especially with how crazy things have been for the last few days."
Aileen wasn't sure what had happened, it had happened so fast and was so unexpected. "Who are you?" It finally occurred to her to ask.
"Colleen Harper. I'm the hospital administrator. What in the world is going on?" She asked. "I know there have been more than a few incidents before like the time the Brooklyn Bridge vanished. We had a devil of a time rescheduling surgeries from that. But usually things are under control fairly fast. This has been going on way longer than usual. I've already asked for elective surgeries that don't effect quality of life to be postponed. Do we need to do anything else?"
"You know the Brooklyn Bridge disappeared?" Aileen asked. She could hear X behind her shaking the neuralizer before there was a flash of light.
Colleen nodded. "And the Statue of Liberty. At least nothing needed to be rescheduled when that disappeared, though."
"This definitely isn't working." X murmured as he shook the neuralizer and flashed it again. No, no glassy look. Something had to be broken, and how was he going to get it fixed? Anyone who would know how to fix a broken neuralizer was currently poisoned.
"X, I don't think it's your neuralizer. I think neuralizers don't work on her." Aileen murmured. A human neuralizers didn't work on? She had never heard that something like that could even be a possiblity. "You know about the bridge and you never said anything to anyone?"
"I had to help reschedule surgeries after an alarming number of doctors and patients were suddenly taking the scenic route to the hospital, because apparently mass surgical scheduling changes require the assistance of the hospital administrator, and I certainly wasn't going to talk to anyone who might possibly be in the middle of doing something useful like trying to find and put a missing bridge back into place. Could you please tell me what in the world is going on and if there is a time frame on when it will be under control again? Because I have a staff and patients to keep safe. And I haven't seen a soul in a black suit in days. Well, besides him when he collected the Weavers," Colleen said, waving her hand at X. "I can usually count on some big black vehicle showing up at least every other day, if for nothing else but using the parking lot as a shortcut. Until now, our record for time between visits was three days. Wait, has something happened to the people that are usually dealing with all of this?" That was something that hadn't occurred to her before, but now that she thought about it, it did make a certain amount of sense. And she very much hoped for the sake of the people who usually handled this that the fact that Dr. Weaver was a neurologist wasn't a terrible sign of what had happened to them.
"There's been an incident." Aileen said after a moment's thought. "We have people trying to get it under control at the moment." Someone that the neuralizer didn't work on. What in the world were they going to do about that? But then again, apparently the neuralizer had never worked on this particular human, and she hadn't done anything with the knowledge that she had. Still, though…. "I think we're going to need you to come with us."
"I think you might need help." Colleen didn't even bother arguing. "Just let me…. Mister Gregory!" She shouted across the parking lot towards the entrance to the ER where an ambulance had pulled in and an intern was talking to the EMT who was unloading. "Stop talking to Mister Weaver and asking him about the patient's condition this instant! Mister Weaver, stop talking all together!"
"I swear Mister Weaver is going to give a patient's family a heart attack one day if anyone ever takes him seriously." Colleen muttered before calling to the doctor who had came out to drag the errant intern inside. "Dr. Sanchez, I'm going to be working from home for the rest of the day! Let my secretary know to forward all calls to my cell phone. Would I be right in guessing that something medical is going on? I can offer at least some supplies if there's anything that might help."
Supplies? She was offering…. "We would probably need to consult with the medics about that. I'm not sure what they have or how supplies are holding up at this point." Aileen said.
"Zed is not going to be happy." X murmured.
"What else can we do?" Aileen murmured back just as a young man with curly brownish hair came hurrying across the parking lot towards them.
"Colly, what's going on?" He asked the little administrator. "Mister Singh was saying something about a broken camera before he left. Well, either that, or a cat was up a fire engine. I'm not quite as good Aimol as you."
"The camera is safely broken and hopefully will be fixed by a competent company that has never heard of our board of directors soon." Colleen said, reaching out to bat the neuralizer X had pulled out away. "Don't even think of using that on him." She hissed. "He has memory issues anyway and you are not making it worse."
"John, what are you doing here? Is school out?" She asked in a normal voice. Herself going off with these people, she was fine with that, but she really would have preferred to avoid dragging anyone else into what was going on, especially this particular young man.
"For spring break." He said. "I thought I would at take a day or two down here. Maybe try walking around and seeing if anything sparks a memory. I probably should have checked the news before I left. I didn't know everything was going crazy until I got here. What's going on? And who are these people?" And why was he feeling the faintest of twinges, seeing how these people, the woman in particular carried themselves?
"They need my help with something." Colleen said. "You can come with us. I'm fairly sure that they can use all of the help that they can get, and with how crazy things are, wandering around probably isn't the best idea." She really didn't want to bring anyone else along, but at least if she kept John with her, she could hopefully protect him if they tried that memory thing again. "Shall we go?"